Hello! So, the Writer's Commentary series is something I want to keep doing for all of my fiction as I continue writing. It's a sort of peek behind the creative curtain at what happens during the writing process. My ideas change a lot between their conception and the final product that gets shown on Tumblr, Itch.io, and Neocities, so hopefully some readers out there will find this to be an interesting ramble.
Though Hell Should Bar the Way started out as a response to a piece of art that I saw on Tumblr. Here's a link to the artist's work on their blog. I really loved the idea of a dullahan (headless horseman) being someone's ride through a dark and stormy night
that of course sparks into something more romantic.
Interestingly, my partner, M., and I were on a Discord call late at night as I was trying to write. We were sharing songs and poems that we liked, since I was struggling to translate my ideas onto the page and needed a break. I shared a duet poetry recital piece that I think needs more appreciation, and M. shared some songs from the original Cats musical as well as Loreena McKennitt's performance of Alfred Noyes' poem The Highwayman
that he had loved as a child.
I had read The Highwayman
before, but never heard it performed so beautifully, and Loreena really killed it (no pun intended). I was instantly transported to a road that was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor
under a night sky where the wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees
and the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
There is such a romance to this poem, and I don't mean just in the love story. The state of high emotion, drama, and suspense that rides these verses feels so raw and heartfelt in a way that I don't often see in poetry nowadays; it's rare to find a love poem (a ballad really) that's so dramatic and tragic without veering into the realm of irony. It's a great poem! You can read it here if you'd like.
The sharp-eyed reader may realize that though Hell should bar the way
is a quote from Noyes' poem! That's because I listened to Loreena and knew that I needed to change my idea immediately. The dullahan remained, but as the undead spirit of the tragically-killed highwayman character from the poem. Bess the landlord's daughter, the only named character of the poem, became reincarnated in my story as Bess Noyes, the university student who needs a ride home in the wee hours of the morning during an ice storm.
A fun fact about Though Hell Should Bar the Way is that I completely forgot the word biker
for the 36 hours I spent writing this story; I could only remember rider
and motorcyclist
so those were the words I used. It's a bit silly when I look back on it, not to mention a wee bit embarrassing. However, I do think that biker
implies a level of gritty, rough-around-the-edges toughness that I wasn't really going for with the unnamed dullahan character. He's meant to be otherworldly and spooky, but not the kind of guy who hangs out in bars or rides with a club of other motorcyclists.
My other partner whom I share my drafts with, Z., asked me if I had ever heard of the Marvel superhero character known as Ghost Rider. I had not prior to that question and subsequent Wikipedia binge. I'm glad to see that undead motorcyclist
is a flourishing avenue of creative expression, though; I'm willing to share the road with Marvel Studios.
Unlike my NSFW story Bargain with the Leshy (read it here), which I also wrote a commentary piece for, I'm pretty happy keeping Though Hell Should Bar the Way as a SFW piece with a fade to black scene at the end. It feels more in keeping with the romance of Noyes' own poem that way. I tried to write a NSFW continuation of it, but nothing felt quite right and eventually I realized that Bess and her ghostly lover weren't willing to share their intimate encounter with an audience of readers—so, I left them alone. Additionally, I don't anticipate returning to use Bess and her ghostly lover as characters again; there won't be a sequel. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel more than free to use the comment box below; I would love to hear from you.